SF works to make business fees less painful

San Francisco City Hall is seen on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

A branch of San Francisco city government that wants to make its technology as easy, quick and efficient as possible for residents? Say what?

Yes, it’s true. The treasurer’s office — best known for taking your money — is also becoming known for its functional, rapid technology. The latest example is a new Online Business Registration system at http://businessportal.sfgov.org that allows anybody seeking to start a new business in San Francisco to quickly register online, pay the fee and begin operations almost immediately.

Registering a new business previously required filling out paper forms, mailing them in and waiting for the treasurer’s office to send back a business registration certification and business account number. It usually took about three weeks. Now it’s all done in minutes.

“This is a huge improvement over how it used to work,” said Treasurer José Cisneros, noting the key piece was allowing people to provide their signatures online rather than with a pen and paper. “Now you can do everything remotely and do everything in an instant.”

And there are many, many such interactions. In 2015, more than 10,000 new businesses registered with the treasurer’s office — from the hairdresser renting his or her first stall to new, booming tech companies. Businesses’ fees can be as little as $75 a year and as much as $35,000.

In total, the city has 105,000 registered businesses that must renew their registration every year and combined they pay $1.2 billion a year to the treasurer’s office in taxes.

Cisneros said interacting with his department is never really fun since it involves forking over money, but at least it can be quick and easy.

“It’s our responsibility to make it as understandable as possible, as easy and efficient as possible,” he said. “I really think we’ve come a long way.”

— Heather Knight

The proposed 8 Washington project would have replaced a parking lot and health club with a 12-story condominium building, a rebuilt health club and a new privately maintained park along the Embarcadero.

Photo: Skidmore Owings and Merrill

The end of 8 Washington: The writing has been on the wall for a long time for 8 Washington St., the proposal waterfront condo project that city voters rejected in 2013 and that later was dealt a further setback when a judge ruled the city had not adequately analyzed the project’s impact on local traffic.

Project developer San Francisco Waterfront Partners, which spent more than five years and tens of millions of dollars on the project, now has formally terminated its exclusive negotiating agreement with the Port of San Francisco, according to a letter last month from land use attorney Neil Sekhri.

Acting port Director Elaine Forbes said the agency would re-evaluate the port-owned Seawall Lot 351, which the developer had proposed to combine with an adjacent tennis and swim club for the condos at 8 Washington St. She said the port is working on a new study looking at all the remaining so-called “seawall” parcels, lots that were made superfluous when the port discontinued its rail system decades ago.

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Seawall Lot 351 now generates $350,000 a year from Ferry Building operator Equity Office Properties, which uses it for parking.

“We know there is a higher and better use for the property and we need to work with the community to figure out what that is,” Forbes said. “For now the trust is earning a nice income for an asset that has very little cost associated with it.”

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents the area and was a leading opponent of the 8 Washington project, said “it’s time for a robust, open community process” to figure out the best use for the property.

“Obviously, 8 Washington was ground zero for one of the most high-profile land use fights in the 21st century,” said Peskin. “The conclusion we should come to from that is that our waterfront is sacred and should be treated as such.”

— J.K. Dineen

Taking care of the bay: A measure that would restore Bay Area ecosystems and protect them from climate change will be on the ballot June 7.

The Clean and Healthy Bay initiative would restore wetlands and habitat for threatened wildlife, protect shoreline communities from sea level rise and improve public access to the bay, at a cost of $500 million. That money would come from a $12 annual parcel tax in all nine Bay Area counties.

“I am proud that the board voted unanimously to place the measure on the June ballet,” said Supervisor London Breed, who introduced the legislation. “The bay is central to all our lives, and we all benefit by keeping it clean and healthy. This is a historic opportunity to support a natural treasure and protect it for future generations.”

Each county must place the measure on its June ballot. It must get two-thirds of the vote cumulatively in the region to pass.